Warheads
A/N: Buddie First Kiss Week prompt: on a dare. Thanks you marciaelena for the beta. Check out all of my 9-1-1 fics here @buddiefirstkissweek
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"Do you remember what you asked me a couple of months ago?"
Buck looks across the table at Maddie, raises a brow at her question before bringing the beer to his lips and taking a long swig. Tonight was supposed to be poker night and Josh had bailed... to go on a date. He didn't know where Maddie was going with this, but he knew that Maddie wouldn't beat around the bush and she’d tell him.
"What did I ask you?"
"You asked me if I thought that you were lonely."
Buck shifts in his chair and lets out a low sigh. "Maddie, that was a while ago. I was just going through something."
"I know you were, Evan. You were watching Red die and imagining yourself in his shoes down the road... at the end of your life. Thinking that maybe you'll never find someone, that being a firefighter is all that you have and that somehow through all of it, you'd get left behind," Maddie says as she takes a few sips of her water before she adds, "again."
Buck shoves the fork deeper in his takeout container, fishing out some lo mein. "I feel like you're trying to go somewhere with whatever this thing is that you're trying to say."
"When's the last time you went out on a date? The last time that you put yourself out there?"
He sighs as he sets down his fork. "There it is. What, because Josh is back in the dating game now, you're going to focus all of your attention on fixing me?" He knows that Maddie means well. She always does. But there's only one person that Buck wants to date, and he can't ruin their friendship over this. It's too much to risk, all because he wanted more than Eddie is willing to give.
"This doesn't have anything to do with Josh."
"Then what does it have to do with, Mads?" Maddie shifts in the chair across from Buck, resting her hands on the table as she looks at her brother. "Is this about the baby, and you're just worried that I'll really be alone now that you and Chim are going to be too busy to worry about your baby brother?"
"No," Maddie says sternly, her eyes softening as she moves her takeout container to the side. She reaches across the table and gently grasps Buck's hands in her own. "I told you that I'm never going to be too busy for you, that I won't leave you behind again, alright?" A quiet sigh slips past her lips as she glances down at their hands and then smiles up at him, sadly. "It's just-- you could have so much more if you would just stop being afraid of the what-if's."
"I don't know what you're talking about." He does know what she's talking about. Buck knows exactly what she's talking about and he clenches his jaw slightly, not liking the direction that poker night is going in. They've had these conversations before, about Buck and Eddie. They've just not had them since Red died and the prospect of Buck dying a lonely, old man had crept into the back of his mind and burrowed in there to stay.
"Yes, you do," she urges, running a hand over her slightly rounded belly. "We're talking about Eddie."
"No, we're not," Buck says with finality. "Not in that way, we're not. We've had this conversation."
"You're right," Maddie agrees. "We have. But at the time I thought that you would move on, that you'd start dating again. You haven't. You've not tried once since Ali. I get that your last couple relationships were hard for you, that they hurt you. But you can't just stop trying."
Buck watches Maddie with intent as she runs her hand over her stomach. He lets silence wash over them for a minute as he finishes his beer and takes the bottle to the sink. He leans back against the counter, looking at his sister. "This isn't about me not trying anymore. It's about me not ruining things with my best friend over some stupid crush that I had."
"You say 'had' like you no longer have some stupid crush on him." Maddie tilts her head to the side slightly as she looks at him. "But it's more than a stupid crush, isn't it, Evan?"
Buck sighs heavily and turns around, starting to tidy the countertop. He needs to distract himself with something other than thoughts of Eddie that are way more friendly than he'd like to be with Buck. "I'm done talking about this."
He hears Maddie moving around at the table. "I hoped it wasn't going to come to this," she sighs. He doesn't want to turn around and talk to Maddie about this right now, but her words have him wondering what she's even talking about at this point. He opens his mouth to speak but is stopped as she drops a large bag of Warhead sour candies onto the table loudly. "50 warheads."
" Mads."
"50 warheads," she repeats, not letting her gaze leave her brother's face. "You know the rules."
"We're not kids anymore. You can't just—"
"No questions asked, Ev." Maddie crosses her arms over her chest, reminding him. "You have to tell Eddie how you feel. If you regret it, I'll eat 50 warheads."
"You're with child . I am not going to make you eat 50 warheads, which makes this entire agreement null and void." Leave it to Maddie to try to use the agreement they had with each other when Buck was a kid now, at twenty-eight. When he thinks about all of the things they'd dared each other to do on their '50 warhead dares' he can't think of a single one that he regretted. Maddie never had to eat the warheads. Buck on the other hand had paid dearly one time . When he dared Maddie to ask a boy out that she had been crushing on for months, Jimmy Lashley, and he had flat out turned her down. 50 warheads were actually pretty close to being painful.
"Chim will do it," Maddie says with certainty. "If you regret telling Eddie that you have feelings for him... Chim will eat 50 warheads."
"You can't be serious about this dare." Buck's aware that there is a whine in his voice as he says it. He's always followed through with the dare, never backed down, and Maddie knows that.
"I'm serious."
Unbelievable.
______________________________
Buck's still in denial over the fact that Maddie dared him to come clean to Eddie about his feelings. Honestly, what adults in their right mind do that? Only the Buckleys, that's who. He's run through every possible scenario in his mind: every possible setting for his confession, every possible reaction that Eddie could have. He's sure that it can only end in one way: rejection and awkwardness.
Christopher is with his abuela and Pepa tonight, and he only has twenty-four hours to do this. Buck figures that he should just suck it up and get it over with. He considered not going through with it at all, but he knows the end result is going to be Chim eating 50 warheads and he can't help but find a little bit of pleasure in that.
He texts Eddie and asks if he's going to be home or if he has plans tonight. Buck can almost hear Eddie laugh when he texts him back saying that his calendar is clear. Buck stops for burgers and fries on the way and once he arrives, he steps into the Diaz household holding the brown paper bag up. "I hope you're hungry."
Eddie chuckles as he pulls two plates down from the cupboard for them. "When am I not?" They take their plates into the living room and balance them on their laps as they eat. Buck is quieter than usual, not really knowing how to bring it up. He regrets his decision to go through with this more and more with each passing moment. Eddie must notice his apprehension, or maybe it's just that Buck is unusually quiet, but Buck startles when he feels a steady hand on his shoulder. "Didn't mean to scare you. Is everything alright?"
"Yeah," Buck answers automatically, "everything is fine." Except everything isn't fine. It isn't fine to have his mind racing with images of rejection, picturing Eddie's face twisted in disgust because he doesn't want that with Buck. It isn't fine to dream about the feel of Eddie's lips firm and needy against his even though he knows deep down it's never going to happen. It isn't fine to picture what it would be like to really be a Diaz, to take Eddie's last name, and be a constant presence for Christopher. Buck cringes at that, thinking that he's not only crossed the line but sprinted beyond the boundaries of acceptable thoughts to have about your best friend.
"It doesn't seem like everything's fine." Eddie sounds concerned and that only makes Buck's heart pinch more.
Buck lets out a slow breath and fidgets with the french fries on his plate. He looks up to a pair of concerned hazel eyes that he's almost sure can see right down into his soul. Buck clears his throat and forces himself to hold Eddie's gaze. "So there's, uh, there's something that I needed to talk to you about."
"Okay," Eddie says slowly, and his voice is dripping with apprehension. "What's going on?"
Buck swallows and leans forward, setting his plate down on the floor. His elbows rest atop his knees and he runs a hand over the top of his head anxiously. Finally, he turns his head to look at Eddie. "So, this is kind of awkward, but... I'm just gonna say it and get it out there and over with." His words come out in a jumble, stacked on top of each other and nearly impossible to break apart, "Ilikeyou."
Eddie frowns. "I didn't quite catch that. Can you... slow down this time?"
Buck huffs out a breath. "I said I like you," he says, glancing down to where his hands are twisting in his lap. "I mean, obviously I like you, you're my best friend. What I meant is... I like-you like you, y'know?"
"You.... like-me, like me?" Eddie repeats carefully, and the way that his eyebrows knit together and he looks at Buck with an odd expression on his face makes Buck question whether he gets it.
"I get that you don't like me in that way, Eddie, that you look at me as a friend and that's it. And that's fine, really it is. I just-- I needed to get it off my chest and now that it's said we can just sweep it under the rug and pretend that it never happened. I'm gonna kill Maddie." Buck's gaze slips to the floor and his heart is pounding in his chest.
"What does Maddie have to do with any of this?"
"It's a long story," Buck tells Eddie after a pause. Now that he's said the words aloud there is a sense of dread looming over him, and he thinks that if he could he'd take it all back. Warheads. All of this unnecessary turmoil because of candy. "Please, let's just forget I said anything." Buck leans down and grabs the plate from the floor before he walks towards the kitchen. Suddenly he feels a vice gripping too tightly around his chest, and he has to remind himself to breathe. He feels like he's going to suffocate on regret, the emotion threatening to swallow him whole because he just fucking ruined everything.
"Buck, wait!" Eddie calls after him, and he hears Eddie's footsteps follow him into the kitchen.
"Please, I-I know I'm the idiot that came over here tonight. I'm the one that said I needed to talk to you and I throw you this curveball. I'm gonna go, and-and give you some space. I'm gonna... go." Buck stumbles over the words and he hates the way that his voice is shaking right now. He hates the way that he sounds so unsteady and unsure. He can't even look at Eddie and he moves to walk towards the door.
He feels a firm grip on his bicep; his pained blue eyes look up at Eddie, drowning in regret.
"Buck, stop."
"Eddie, please. I-I know I probably made you uncomfortable and this is super weird."
"That's what you think is happening? That I'm uncomfortable?" Eddie's grip tightens slightly on Buck's arm so that he won't slip away out of reach. His other hand moves to Buck's hip, and Buck's heart is racing with the realization that Eddie isn't pushing him away. He doesn't look disgusted or upset with his admission. There's a darkness in his eyes that Buck barely registers before Eddie is drawing Buck forward. "You're an idiot," he mutters, and Eddie is all but pressed up against the front of him, lips closing over Buck's. Eddie shifts the hand that was anchoring Buck in place at his bicep and slides it up to his chest, dragging his fingers over the t-shirt.
Buck kisses him back, soft and slow. He tries to memorize the feel of Eddie's lips against his, the soft drag of his fingers before they curled against his chest, the taste of him. He draws back just enough to hold Eddie's gaze, a fond smile playing across his lips. "I'm an idiot," Buck echoes, his chuckle low as Eddie smiles in return.
"My idiot," Eddie says, and Buck only hums in agreement.
